Tuesday, February 15, 2011

EKB Capsule News...West Virginia...2-16-'11

Jessica Rose Burgess, 23, of South Charleston, a former Teays Valley Christian School part-time teacher aide, has been charged with possession with the intent to deliver cocaine. A South Charleston Police officer set up a cocaine buy after finding a text message which said, "I got some flame pow wow if you want any," which the officer noted is slang for cocaine. The officer set up a meeting at the South Charleston Rite Aid where he met with Burgess and Joel Archer and found a bag that contained 3.2 grams of cocaine in their car. Her bail is set at $50,000 and her preliminary hearing is scheduled for February 22nd.

MSHA Secretary Joe Main says one MSHA district in Southern West Virginia will become two MSHA districts within a matter of months. The proposal will split District 4 into what will be District 4 in Mount Hope and District 12 which will operate out of Pineville in Wyoming County. Money for the cost of creating another MSHA district is included in the proposed budget for MSHA from the Obama Administration. The budget proposal reflects a roughly 5% increase for the federal agency.

Huntington Police say 21 year old Larry Webb and his wife, Courtney Webb, also 21, were taken to Cabell Huntington Hospital after being stabbed Tuesday afternoon during a fight that ended up outside their home on Seventh Avenue. Larry Webb was stabbed in the upper arm, and his wife was stabbed in the back. Police arrested Larry Webb's brother, 29 year old Jermon Webb.

Police say Kristin Nibert, 26, of Point Pleasant, was taken to St. Mary's Medical Center where she was listed in critical condition after losing contol of her car and hitting a tree on Third Avenue in Huntington around 2:30 A.M. Tuesday morning.

Casey Morris, 31, of Scott Depot, has pleaded guilty to stealing several guns from her father-in-law's residence, also in Scott Depot, at various times between October 2009 and March 17, 2010. Morris faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine when sentenced May 31st.

Changes to postal delivery services in Charleston will begin this Saturday as carriers working out of the Stonewall Station at 303 Ohio Avenue and the Venable Avenue Post Office will begin working out of the Charleston main office located at 1002 Lee Street East. The Stonewall Jackson and Kanawha City locations will still be available to customers. This is not expected to cause noticeable change in home or business delivery service.

At Huntington’s State of the City Address Monday, Huntington Mayor Kim Wolfe announced the city is going back to the five day work week, but it could come at the expense of six jobs. City Council Chairman Mark Bates said he agrees with the five day work week, but City Council will try it’s best to come up with money to save those jobs. Wolfe also took time out to sing the praises of the Huntington Police Department, which has help decrease crime by 6.8 percent in the last year and to say he sees a bright future for Huntington.

Kim Crose, the mother of Shawn Shumbera, a developmentally disabled man, says he was raped last month at Mildred Mitchell-Bateman Hospital, even though a judge ordered him into a treatment program and out of the hospital 15 months ago. Crose says, just days prior to the assault, hospital officials at Bateman had placed a forensic mental patient who was institutionalized following an attempted murder in the same room as her son. Crose says she learned of the assault after a Bateman employee called her and said her son was being transferred to Cabell Huntington Hospital, but did not say why. A few hours later, someone from Cabell Huntington called and asked for permission to perform a rape test on him. Shumbera, 31, has been in Bateman Hospital since 2001.

Huntington City Council met for it's regularly scheduled meeting Monday, after Mayor Kim Wolfe gave his State of the City Address. The Council considered a resolution that would allow the mayor to apply for a federal grant to hire ten firefighters for two years, but they ultimately voted against it. There were also not enough votes to overturn a veto by the mayor to stop a reduction in his spending limit from $15,000 to $7,500.

Leaders and law enforcement in Charleston are asking lawmakers for help as they try to control the the increasing problems associated with meth in West Virginia. The Committee on Health and Human Resources has passed House Bill 2946 which would require prescription for any drugs that contain pseudoephedrine. Mayor Danny Jones says this is an opportunity for the legislature to shut down all meth labs with the stroke of a pen. Berkeley County Delegate Jonathan Miller says, if meth users are buying pseudoephedrine in large numbers, there is probably a significant amount of sales tax revenue that comes in from that, but Committee Chairman Don Perdue told Miller stopping the drug use is more important than tax revenues. West Virginia is joined by Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and Kansas which are also considering similar bills.

State lawmakers are working through a bill that would require those convicted of a felony crime to submit a DNA sample that would be placed in the State Police DNA database, but it would be deleted from the data base if the person's conviction is one day overturned. Members of the House Judiciary Committee questioned State Police Lt. Brent Myers, the state's DNA database administrator, about another section of the bill that would allow State Police to use some of the DNA information that at some previous point had been illegally obtained by them. Myers says the sample would be removed because they're not supposed to have it, but they follow through on a match that has already occurred. Kanawha County Delrgate Meshea Poore says that provision of the bill raises some potential questions as to whether any person's constitutional rights were violated.